It’s a classic Chicago contrast of destruction and regeneration, one that will come into sharp focus Monday as the Cubs play their home opener at historic Wrigley Field.

A few blocks south of the ballpark, backhoes have been tearing into decades-old buildings along Clark Street. They’re clearing the way for a new elevated structure that’s supposed to unclog bottlenecks on the city’s busiest transit line, but could also loom like a freeway above homes and shops.

Meanwhile, new structures are altering the urban confines of the Friendly Confines, at once making its surroundings more inviting and more crammed.

To put things in Cub terminology, its time to fly the “W” — not for “Win,” but for “Warning.”

The developments, whose combined cost exceeds $3 billion, amount to a high-stakes urban design drama whose impact will resound for generations throughout the city’s North Side. Together, they could fuel a new era of growth in already-vibrant Wrigleyville and neighborhoods like Uptown to its north. Or they could scar the very heart of Wrigleyville with the new elevated structure and erase its quirky, human-scaled charm.

The outcome will speak to an issue that resounds far beyond Chicago: Whether public officials can effectively manage the growing phenomenon of “transit-oriented development,” which encourages high-density construction near transit and commuter rail stops to cut down on car use and save energy.

Transit-oriented development — TOD, for short — may sound good in theory, but some developers use it as an pretext for bulked-up buildings that are over-sized eyesores and dwarf their delicate-scaled neighborhoods. Examples now blight the otherwise attractive downtowns of suburbs like Wilmette and La Grange.

Unfortunately, that’s not the worst-case scenario that could arise from the CTA’s demolition of 14 structures as part of its $2.1 billion push to modernize the Red and Purple lines. The worst case is no development at all on the lots left vacant by the demolition, which would leave residents and businesses exposed to the racket of the “L” and a track structure that, at its apex, will be 45 feet high — double the elevated’s current height.

CTA officials say the chances of that happening are remote, but their real estate development track record is hardly spotless. Consider the handsomely restored Gerber Building, a Beaux Arts gem at the agency’s Wilson Avenue Red Line station that reopened last fall. Its retail space remains depressingly empty. CTA spokeswoman Tammy Chase said in an email that the agency is still seeking to nail down a tenant.

By virtue of their location near or next to the Addison Street elevated stop, the new developments around Wrigley Field qualify as transit-oriented. And they show the pluses and minuses of the approach.

According to team spokesman Julian Green, the Cubs’ owners, the Ricketts family, are spending nearly $1 billion on the renovated ballpark, the outdoor plaza called The Park at Wrigley, a six-story office building for the team and the just-opened seven-story Hotel Zachary. The multi-year transformation is scheduled to wrap up in 2020.

Designed by the Chicago office of Edmonton, Alberta-based Stantec, the new structures are not brilliant architecture, but they are positive additions to the cityscape, replacing ugly surface parking lots with street-defining buildings and the lively plaza. They also are appropriately deferential to Wrigley, with generous setbacks that echo the wedding-cake design of the iconic ballpark and ensure they don’t crowd it.

The picture is very different at a mixed-use development south of Addison Street, called Addison & Clark, that will include apartments, shops and a movie theater. Backed by M&R Development and Bucksbaum Retail Properties, with a design by Chicago architects Solomon Cordwell Buenz, the eight-story project has a reported price tag of more than $150 million. At its 2016 groundbreaking, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Ald. Tom Tunney, 44th, lauded it as ideal example of transit-oriented development.

As built, however, the project fulfills the prophecies of those who warned that it would be a looming presence. Along Addison, its main setback is too high and too shallow to make it a good neighbor to Wrigley. Facade materials may lessen this effect, but only so much.

Wrigley once rose majestically, like a medieval cathedral, above the humble jumble of three-flats and stores that rimmed it. This contrast, an essential part of the ballpark’s beauty, is now compromised by the cumulative impact of the new buildings around it, particularly Addison & Clark. Wrigley is a strong enough presence to survive that challenge, but Emanuel and Tunney need to stop, take stock, and ensure that future construction around the ballpark doesn’t further mar its landmark presence.

Also potentially at risk is one of the main gateways to Wrigley — the raucous row of bars, restaurants and sports gear shops that line Clark Street south of the ballpark. No one would ever call them polished. Some would even call the bars (or, more accurately, the drunken revelers who emerge from them) a threat to public safety. But this row of buildings is as much a part of the Wrigley experience as the three-flats on Waveland and Sheffield avenues.

There is every reason, then, to take a hard look at how the CTA’s Red Line-Purple Line modernization project will affect the raffish strip and the quiet neighborhoods around it.

The centerpiece of the $2.1 billion project is a ramp, called a “flyover,” that will let northbound Brown Line trains sweep over southbound Red and Purple Line trains north of the busy Belmont Avenue station. The CTA says the flyover will allow it to run more trains, cutting delays and overcrowding. The project will also remake stations, bridges and track along a century-old corridor between Lawrence and Bryn Mawr avenues on the Red Line.

While construction is supposed to start in late 2019 and be complete by 2025, the agency has yet to select a contractor or issue design guidelines for the bypass. But it has asked Solomon Cordwell Buenz to hold community meetings to plan development on vacant sites along the flyover and the refurbished stations. The CTA has also posted online videos that show idealized, conceptual versions of the completed bypass. In the videos, the sky is blue, the sun shines and new buildings magically replace vacant lots left by the current round of demolition.

“As soon as those sites are ready and construction is complete, there’s a game plan in place,” said Christine Carlyle, director of planning at Solomon Cordwell Buenz. By 2025, she predicted, the cluster of entertainment attractions around Wrigley will help lure developers to the small sites along the bypass. “There’s going to be a lot of good synergies in that area,” she said.

To some businesses and residents, however, the prospects are hardly so bright. They worry about the interim period when they’ll be living and working in a construction zone. “It’s definitely going to put a damper” on business, said Kevin Grossett, owner of the Irie Jerk Bar & Grill at 3404 N. Clark, which sits just north of planned flyover.

On the 3200 block of North Wilton Avenue, directly east of the flyover route, resident Ellen Hughes is urging a property tax moratorium to compensate for the tumult of construction. Residents on her block, she argues in a written proposal, will be subjected to loud noise, dirt, and ugly empty lots, making their street “a terrible place to live” and the properties “impossible to sell.”

“It looks like a freeway,” she said of the flyover.

But it doesn’t have to.

By starting the community planning process, the CTA has at least signaled that it views the Red Line-Purple Line modernization project as an exercise in urban design, not just transportation. It would be even better if the agency were to aim higher and insert the word “placemaking” in its development standards for the project. Wrigleyville and the neighborhoods around it are, above all, memorable places. The first order of business should be to do them no harm and ensure that new buildings are compatible and the bypass touches the ground lightly.

God, as always, will be in the details, which is why it’s equally essential that the CTA push contractors hard to make the flyover as visually unobtrusive as possible. That won’t be easy with a concrete superstructure that towers so high. So the CTA and the city’s Department of Planning and Development need to use every tool at their disposal to ensure that, once construction of the flyover is finished, development occurs quickly, shielding adjacent properties from the bypass.

Yet getting the development right matters just as much. To retain Wrigleyville’s character, small-scale projects occupying single lots will be preferable to multi-lot blockbusters. City officials should also dangle the carrot of incentives to promote the construction of affordable housing. The development that accompanies the Red Line-Purple Line modernization should create districts that are as equitable as they are vibrant.

For more than a century, from the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 to Millennium Park, Chicago has demonstrated the capacity to think big and execute with elan. But its “make no little plans” narrative also must include such horrendous mistakes as its now-demolished high-rise public housing projects. For the big transit-oriented developments in and around Wrigley to succeed, we need to reset our sights — on the local as well as the citywide, on the granular detail as well as the grand gesture, and on creating memorable places as well as moving people safely and efficiently.

Somebody please show Rahm the Blue Line

February 14, 2018
By: Kate Lowe and Janet Smith

Last week, four companies expressed interest in building an express train to O’Hare in response to a request for qualifications from the city. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the project’s most visible advocate, has argued the train would make Chicago more attractive to business and bolster our international image. But as researchers who study urban planning, transit investments and funding, we believe that an express train between O’Hare and downtown Chicago is a flashy solution in search of a problem.

In other words: It’s unnecessary. Worse, it could siphon political will and public resources away from needed projects, while triggering construction and capacity problems.

Here’s why public transportation agencies and the general public should derail this process before momentum takes over: Chicago already has a direct transit connection between O’Hare and downtown: the Blue Line. In fact, among the nation’s 40 busiest airports, a FiveThirtyEight analysis identified O’Hare as a unique example where the train is already a good option for downtown and can often beat a taxi in travel time. Improvements along the Blue Line have sped up the trip, and the recently announced FastTracks program will allow increased frequency. Chicago is already winning the competition for good train access to a major airport.

Beyond being unnecessary, we see risk for harm due to a possible diversion of scarce public resources. While the RFQ clearly states there will be no public funds provided, transportation projections of ridership levels and recouping production costs are notoriously overly optimistic. It’s likely that a funding gap will emerge as cost projections escalate or a construction problem emerges.

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We expect that the public sector would then fill the funding gap. This happened in Detroit, where business and civic elites first began planning a privately funded streetcar. Realizing they needed more money, they then turned to the public sector and even had to seek a second round of federal dollars to cover a funding shortfall. The project, which especially benefits those who own land along the streetcar—many of whom pushed for the public spending—will require public operating subsidies when the private operator turns over the infrastructure in 10 years.

Even before detailed planning has started, we see hints of public spending for the express train. Press coverage has already mentioned that the public sector might pay for a station or a station upgrade. Even if the public sector does not fund a cost escalation or a station, the private operator will turn to the public sector for subsidies if ridership and hence revenues fail to match overly optimistic forecasts.

An infrastructure project also comes with trade-offs. Construction causes hassles and pollution in impacted communities—something we have been living with in many parts of our city the past few years.

Furthermore—and perhaps more important—is the question of right-of-way competition between the proposed rail project and existing services that are vital to our metro. The Infrastructure Trust proposed two routes with rights-of-way along existing transit service (the Blue Line and Metra), which could negatively impact the capacity of these services.

If our leaders are going to push for infrastructure investment, let’s see more work to improve our core system (a good example is the FastTracks program, which funds public transit improvements using ride hailing service fees).

Social exclusion and limited transit access impact thousands of residents today. As the Metropolitan Planning Council has found, we all lose out because of segregation. The energy and political will expended on a flashy train to O’Hare could instead be channeled to accelerate efforts at the local, state and federal level to secure funds for the much-needed and high-priority Red Line extension or improvements to bus service. These investments will do more to advance an inclusive and prosperous Chicago and will address transit equity for people who live in our city, instead of a train that rushes the already privileged out of it.

Kate Lowe is a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Chicago who focuses on transportation and planning. Janet Smith is a UIC faculty member and co-director of the Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood & Community Improvement.

Please join us to receive information and discuss the demolition and utilities relocation work for the Red Purple Bypass Area. We look forward to seeing you.

If you have questions or need addition information, contact:LaTrice Phillips-Thompson
CTA Government and Community Relations Officer
at: (312) 681-2709
or: lphillips-thompson@transitchicago.com
You may also contact us at:RPM@transitchicago.com
or visit: www.transitchicago.com/rpmproject

The Cubs are in the playoffs, so we will all be busy watching baseball.
As soon as there is a new meeting date, we will post it.Go Cubs!

From Alderman Tunney’s office:
Please note that the Red-Purple Bypass Area TOD meeting originally scheduled for Thursday, October 18th will be rescheduled for a later date. I will share the new meeting date when it is confirmed.

Red-PurpleBypass Area

Oct. 18, 20176:00–8:00 p.m.
(*Presentation at 6:30 p.m.)

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), in conjunction with the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, is continuing its redevelopment study to complement the Red and Purple Modernization transit construction project (RPM Phase One). The purpose of this Transit Oriented Development (TOD) study is to encourage specific, community-supported redevelopment strategies for portions of land required for the transit construction project that could be made available for redevelopment after construction.

Because this TOD study is community-driven, we rely on your input. This is the second in a series of three public meetings. The purpose of this meeting is to confirm outcomes of the first round of meetings and provide residents and business owners with an opportunity to: